December 2011

12/30/2011

I recently experimented with a wonderful hybrid drawing technique that merged photography and hand drawing. The process was simple and the resulting composite drawings were very exciting. I began with a photograph that was printed on matte finish coated bond paper, then “enhanced” with color markers and colored pencils. This series of three images was printed on large format paper and framed for presentation. My process is explained in detail below.

Digital Photograph of a Dancer. I found a wonderful image of a ballet teacher and student taken with one of the earliest digital cameras. The extremely low resolution of the photograph inspired me to see what I could do to make it more interesting by adding to the scene with markers and colored pencils.

Inkjet Print and Hand Coloring. I printed the photograph on 13”x19” Epson matte finish coated paper. The rough surface of the paper accepted colored pencil like chalk on a chalk board. I colored the dance studio walls with Chartpak AD markers and proceeded to add texture, hatching and additional linework with several Prismacolor pencils. I used a very loose “hatching” technique with the pencil to reinforce an informal character and to reduce the photographic dominance of the scene.

Pencil Frame and Highlights. I used each of the different colored pencils to trace around the outside edge of the photograph to disguise the image and give it a more artistic frame.I completed the hand drawn work with a bright yellow pencil to highlight the shoulders and ballet bar. White pencil was extensively used for reflections on the floor, back wall and ballet tights.

Reformatting the Photograph. This pair of outdoor photographs was cropped square to break away from the typical 4”x6” proportion that most photos have. I enlarged each image to approximately 9”x9” and printed them on the same 13”x19” Epson paper as the ballet photograph.

Young Rock Climber. The beautiful textures and colors of the stone in this photograph allowed me to exaggerate the rock faces with deep blue, red and orange colored markers and pencils. I accented the rock cracks and overhangs with colored pencil linework, using both white and black pencils.

Future Contractor. This dramatic photograph of a tree fort under construction had a nice combination of yellow and orange colors in the foreground contrasted against the gray and green colors in the background. I enhanced most of the image with colored pencils except the face which was left untouched.

12/23/2011

I’ve previously written about an annual Thanksgiving tradition that I've established with my daughter Gretchen each year in which we create a watercolor about a family of turkeys and their world travels, life challenges and feathered pleasures. Here are links to two former articles I’ve published explaining the entire story and with pictures of every painting we’ve produced over the past fifteen years. November 23, 2010 Blog Post and November 22, 2011 Blog PostThe subject we chose this year was “cruiser bikes” with our very hip looking turkeys on fat tire bikes with many of their turkey friends. Here are some photos of our process. Enjoy!

Step 1 - Pencil Mockup. I composed the scene in pencil to visualize a pair of young turkeys on fat tire bikes, riding with a group of turkeys through a city street. This mockup was copied onto watercolor paper and painted.

Step 2 - Background Color. Gretchen began the watercolor with a light gray background and initial painting of the bicycles and clothing. As the different layers of watercolor dried, she continued to build up colors, shadows and detail.

Step 3 - Final Color and Text. We stretched the watercolor into a two-day event and completed the painting with a “once-over” build up of the shadows and final lettering. We successfully completed our sixteen annual watercolor and both look forward to many more turkey stories in the future!

12/13/2011

More design students and professionals are developing their projects using Google SketchUp models as 3d tools for visualizing their ideas. In recent years, clients have become accustomed to viewing SketchUp progress models and now with many design offices, the SketchUp models are serving as the only presentation format the client ever sees during design conceptualization and development.

I believe that there should always be a certain level of hand sketching and rendering during the early phases of design and that the hand drawing process can be quick and easy to create. The following exercise takes a single SketchUp model and reveals four hand drawn variations that range from simple tracing with and ink pen to sophisticated digital manipulation. The four techniques are; 1) overlay and trace drawing, 2) Overlay and trace composite scan, 3) Digital composite drawing, and 4) Digital hybrid watercolor.

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Alternaitve 1: Overlay and Trace Drawing

1.1 Basic SketchUp model. This day care room was simply modeled without a ceiling so I could reveal strong shadows with sunlight. The scene was created with minimal color, exported as a jpeg and printed on 11”x17” paper.

1.2 Overlay Line Drawing. I placed tracing paper over the print and traced the cropped center portion of the scene with a Pentel Sign pen, outlining the basic shapes and adding other elements into the drawing such as background wall art, overhead track lights and tabletop plants. I also modified the umbrella shape.

1.3 Final Color Drawing. I colored the line drawing with a few Chartpak AD markers and added some colored pencil to the furniture, clothing and walls. The visual was completed enough to show the character of the play space without over working the drawing!

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Alternative 2: Overlay and Trace Composite Scan

2.1 Colored SketchUp model. The same model was enhanced with some additional color applied to the walls and furniture. This color would eventually serve as background tone for the composite scan.

2.2 Overlay Line Drawing. I traced the image with a Pentel Sign pen similar the the previous drawing technique. Notice that I placed a second sheet of tracing paper beneath the top drawing. This “slip sheet” was necessary for fading back the background model view and color.

2.3 Final Color Composite Scan. I added marker color to the overlay drawing and colored pencil to walls, clothing and to represent a carpeted floor. Notice the yellow highlights above the umbrella and the children to represent overhead spot lighting. The final image was scanned together with the SketchUp view beneath it to generate an enhanced level of tones, shadows and color. Compare this “composite scan” with the earlier overlay and trace drawing (1.3) and notice the differences between them!

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Alternative 3: Digital Composite Drawing

3.1 Highly Developed SketchUp Model. When creating digital composite drawings, your SketchUp model must be constructed with accurate detail and composition as it all shows in the final visualization. Using the same model as the previous versions, I added plants, wall graphics (nature photographs), foreground toys and overhead track lights.

3.2 Lightened and Printed Image. I saved the scene as a jpeg and lightened the view in Adobe Photoshop. This important step of reducing the color and contrast allowed me to “add back” the color with markers and colored pencils. I printed the image on 11”x17” coated bond paper.

3.3 Colored Marker. I added color to the print with Chartpak AD markers giving the image the “hand colored” character.

3.4 Final Pencil Line Enhancement. Following the marker coloring step, I added tone to the drawing with colored pencils and traced over many of the edges with a graphite pencil. This “over drawing” using a graphite pencil further disguised the computer model and created a dominant appearance of a hand drawing - a successful composite of digital modeling with hand drawing!

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Alternaitve 4: Digital Hybrid Watercolor

4.1 Shaderlight Rendered SketchUp Model. This final alternative involved the plugin Shaderlight which gave the SketchUp model a more photorealistic appearance. The digital rendering process dropped out the edges and linework which were partially added back on a separate layer in Photoshop. This photorealistic rendering step did not take much time and produced a SketchUp view much more enhanced than the previous versions.

4.2 Lightened and Printed Image. Identical to the previous drawing alternative (3.2), I lightened the jpeg in Photoshop and printed it 11”x17” on coated bond paper.

4.3 Colored Marker. I added Chartpak AD markers to the scene and with a very hard graphite pencil, overtraced most of the objects and edges with informal, overlapping, and sometimes doubled up freehand pencil lines. Notice how the drawing had little contrast and appeared somewhat dull. This was intentional as the contrast was eventually added back in the final digital filtered process.

4.4 Digital Watercolor Filter. I scanned the original artwork at 300dpi and applied a watercolor filter to the image in Adobe Photoshop. I finally adjusted the contrast levels of the image. Notice how the watercolor filter gave the background walls a soft texture and transformed the color marker into what appeared as a painted surface!

4.5 Enlarged Digital Watercolor View. Study this cropped version of the digital watercolor and compare it with the other three alternative drawing techniques, each using variations of the same SketchUp model. Try using any or all of the alternatives on your next project. You will be surprised how easy it is and how excited your clients will be seeing your creative drawings!

12/09/2011

I’m often asked to illustrate various parks, river corridors, bike trails, playgrounds, residential developments and other visuals for urban planning projects. This series of drawings produced for a river study in Colorado was developed with an identical drawing style and coloring technique. When visualizing different outdoor park and open space elements for a project, I always try to draw a variety of the different materials, furniture types, trees and landscaping, signage, public art, lighting, architecture and especially people. Without inserting kids playing, bicyclists, runners and walkers, any of the spaces would appear lifeless and abandoned.

Each sketch was drawn from imagination (not traced from any photograph or 3D model) first in pencil, then traced over with a felt tip pen on standard tracing paper. The line drawing was copied onto heavy weight bond paper using a digital copier and quickly colored with Chartpak AD markers.

Bike Trail Aerial View. This simple view from above identified the relationship between the natural river edge, meandering bike trail and adjacent roadway with street parking. I inserted bikers and walkers to activate the scene.

Telling Multiple Stories. This eye-level perspective expanded on the river scene by illustrating public transit, bridge crossing the waterway and showing context with the houses in the background. Although not the best drawings of runners in the foreground, I wanted to emphasize the popular open space by having lots of people in the scene.

Multiple Vignettes. This composition showed different types of pedestrian bridges and underpass that would be developed as part of the open space trail system. I grouped all three views in a single drawing.

Playground and Pond. To reinforce safety, I drew a fence between the playground and the parked cars and placed benches close by with parents watching the children. The background revealed a shade structure, pedestrian lighting, fishing pier and walking path surrounding a small pond.

Overhead View of Ball Field. This scene illustrated an active baseball game and the relationship between two different sports fields and a snack shop. I chose an aerial view to capture more of the different sports venues.

School Playground. This sketch shows the foreground play structures with a soccer game and school building in the background.

Aerial View of a Recreational Park. Unlike the other closeup drawings in this series, I visualized all of the park elements and river corridor with an aerial view. Notice the different sports fields and structures, each activated with people. I count over 40 people in the drawing!

Alternative Riverfront Developments. Most of my planning projects involve different residential and commercial development scenarios. These two drawings show the river, bike trail system and two entirely different developments against the river. The residential property fronted directly onto the river while the commercial property was separated from the river by an access road.

12/02/2011

A quick and enjoyable way to experiment with merging hand drawing with digital tools - a technique I have named “Tradigital Images” (merging the two words traditional and digital), is with photography. This simple visualization exercise involved a photograph that I found on the internet, reproduced only for the purpose of using it as a base for this hand drawing exercise.

The building was located on a college campus and had a very beautiful symmetrical form, roof lines and proportions. The process I went through to create a digital watercolor effect is explained below:

Building context

Step 1: Print the Photograph. I lightened the photograph in Adobe Photoshop and printed it onto 8 1/2”x11” matte finish coated bond paper using a high quality ink jet printer.

Step 2: Color Marker and Graphite Pencil. I gave the building and landscaping a light wash with Chartpak AD markers, dabbing the colors onto the print. I used a light blue marker (Azure) for the windows and a gray marker (Cool Gray #1) for the roof. I also colored the bulding walls with Naples Yellow and the lawn with Willow Green. Once the marker step was completed, I “overtraced” many of the windows, building edges and roof lines with a very hard graphite pencil - keeping the linework very light and barely visible.

Step 3: Image Scan. I scanned the colored artwork as a 300 dpi TIFF image. Notice how much of the photograph had been disguised beneath the color marker and pencil linework. The uncolored sky reproduced as an even gradient of blue from the original photograph.

Step 4: Digital Watercolor Filter. I opened the scanned drawing in Adobe Photoshop and applied a simple watercolor filter to the image, which gave it a rough texture and accentuated many of the pencil lines and “blobs” from the colored markers. The original image was purposely light and I increased the contrast levels in Photoshop to finish the digital experiment!